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Violence takes in the strange humanoid, and reacts immediately, nudging Gerald forward a step, and, letting out a blood curdling scream, lays into the creature with his shield. Taking a lead from his master, Gerald attacks as well.
edit: thaaaaaaaaaat wasn't right... Woops, forgot to close a dice tag.
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The Aasimar gets his visions clouded for a few moments, but that soon passes without a second trouble. As the party realizes the room is turning back into the entrance, he searches the whole place for the items he was told to find, including the sculpture, a cerimonial saber, a pair of magic boots, and a certain document.
"Give me a minute folks, there's something I need to find here."
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Most of the shelves contain collections of assorted books, scrolls, and Pathfinder Chronicles, arranged by date. In addition, the library possesses a small general reference section in the southeast corner. The inner doors on the west wall open to small storage closets. The first closet contains reams of paper, blank notebooks, assorted inks, quills, binding glue, scissors, and similar items. The second contains a filing log of all the volumes in the library and a strange relief carving covered with serpents. The rags where the dark creeper fell contain a masterwork dagger and three doses of "black smear" poison(a specialty of the dark folk).
Several magical scrolls are filed amid the library’s shelves. The shelves hold a scroll of comprehend languages and a scroll of darkvision.
In the laboratory, The desk contains Miregrold’s personal journals. One of them lies open, revealing his latest entry (see Handout A), a passage concerning his growing suspicions that his former associate, a dark stalker named Zoathrias, has returned to murder him and steal his aureolyte crystal. Others contain some pretty damning evidence concerning Miregrold’s past robberies, the spoils of which he sold to fund his research, and his misuse of Pathfinder Society funds. A search uncovers a few dog-eared pages that concern dealings with dark folk (such as dark creepers and dark stalkersand includes notes about their weaknesses.
A search of the desk uncovers a collection of notes detailing the proper placement of banded sunrods to activate the lighting apparatus, and a larger version housed farther underground, in a large cavern.
Perhaps I’m just paranoid, but I feel the need to recount several queer goings on that occurred over the last week.
On three separate occasions, when I returned to the excavation site, I discovered the sunrods in the device prematurely drained and the chamber bathed in thick, unnatural darkness. Initially, I’d thought there might be something wrong with the device, so I tried the same combinations upstairs on the prototype.
Nothing happened, at least nothing resembling what was going on downstairs.
Vitrios offered to stay onsite, to keep an eye on the device and see if he could track down the reason for its malfunctions. The next day, we found him unconscious, barely breathing—it seems he’d suffered some sort of vermin bite. My mistake to leave him down there alone.
I’m not sure it was accidental. I’m still waiting for the alchemist’s report, but the symptoms looked similar to the effects of Black Smear poison. Zoathrius used to use a device called a spider-biter when he‘d knock off guards. It was a quick, snapping spike-thing, which he’d coat with the same toxins he’d polish his blades with. Poxing dark folk. If I could gut ‘em all… I keep telling myself he’s never getting away from that aboleth I left him with, but if he did, I’d be the first person he’d come looking for. Me and the aureolyte. By now, he must know I gave him up for the crystal.
It has to be paranoia. There’s no way.
Still, it’ll give me an excuse to throw a killswitch on the prototype just to be sure. Instead of the glimmer, coruscation, fulgor, taper, effulgence pattern I’m using to get the daylight effect, I’m going to switch the taper and coruscation sunrods, which should overload it, creating some seriously intense blinding light, but not enough to cause an explosion. The same patterns should also work on the main device.
-Skeldon Miregold 4709
Miregrold keeps his most valuable possessions in this room for added security. An unlocked chest is stashed beneath Miregold’s workbench. It contains a masterwork light crossbow, five sapphires worth 40 gp each, 10 pp, and 50 gp.
There are several alchemical items on the desk which are clearly visible without searching. For Tier 1–2, there is a vial of alchemist’s fire, an acid flask, and two vials of antitoxin.
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I have been having severe dental pain the last few days, and have gone to the dentist 4 times without relief. I'm trying to keep up, but am having a lot of issue concentrating. Hopefully that should be over soon and I can back in some more.
I've also just gotten word that I am deploying shortly after Christmas, and that shouldn't affect this game, but it's possible. So just a Head's up.
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By torchlight, the darkness yields to show that the chain extends down 40 feet. It is afixed to a stalactite, which is one foundation for a small wooden pier. The pier is surrounded on all sides (as far as any light carries) by dark, still waters. There is a rope that extends northwest from the pier. Two small skiffs are moored to the pier.
The chain looks firmly anchored at both the top and bottom, presenting a straightforward climb down, for everyone except Gerald.
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Violence starts clucking, seeing the drop ahead. He dismounts, giving a Gerald a light rap on the nose, to remind him who's boss. He quickly and expertly removes his armour, stowing it in Gerald's saddlebacks. He retrieves a length of silk rope from one of the other saddlebags, and uses it to bind Gerald's maw. Taking his time, he reassures, threatens and physically restrains Gerald as he needs to, then binds his legs with the rope.
Violence grunts as he slings the trussed Gerald over his shoulders, moves ponderously over to the chain, looks at it dubiously, and lets out an undulating scream. He grabs the chain and starts climbing down it expertly.
As his feet touch the ground, Violence lets out a grunt, and nearly collapses as he shrugs Gerald off of his shoulders. He takes a few minutes to recover, then slowly unties Gerald, giving him a pat of genuine affection when he thinks no one is looking. He then retrieves all of his gear from Gerald and prepares himself for combat once more. Once ready, he swings back up to his accustomed position on Gerald's back.
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A makeshift platform stands between a series of limestone stalagmites protruding from a seemingly endless subterranean lake. Only a small pool of light illuminates the platform, falling from the hole in the cavern’s ceiling above and holding back the thick darkness stretching in all directions. Three ornate ivory gondolas float nearby, tethered to one of the planks forming the haphazard platform. A rope tied to the tallest stalagmite stretches taught into the darkness.
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I'll go ahead and get into one of the gondolas (are they the boat type or the ski-lift like type?)
"Who is with me?"
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The platform rests very near the center of the underground body of water, which extends out for between 250 and 300 feet in all directions. The lake is fed by a stream that enters beneath its surface on the northern edge and flows out from a similarly concealed tributary to the southwest. On the north, south, and west edges of the cavern, the water flows right up to the smooth, stone walls. On the eastern shore, a low bank filled with fine black sand leads to a narrow tunnel away from the lake. It is to this passage that the guide rope leads, 300 feet from end to end.
Each boat holds two Medium creatures and can be propelled with a 25-foot punting pole (found in the bow of each craft). The PCs may also pull the craft along the surface of the water using the guide rope.
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Though naturally formed, the walls and floors of this room are secured and reinforced with additional construction. It appears as though these newer structures were recently partially torn down. At the chamber’s heart lies a crude and massive machine-like device. It consists of a large stone and iron tank fitted on a crossbar to a disk plated with reflective metals.
Strings and cables, threaded through the device in intricate cat’s cradles, secure delicate and precisely oriented refractive devices.
The unfortunate venture-captain Skeldon Miregrold is lashed to the top of his own greatest invention, his body riddled with hundreds of sharp, crystal needle-width shunts all filled with acid. His moans reflect a nearly perfect despair.
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Rhydderch joins the halfling and attempting to detect any evil in the room.
"Venture-Captain...we have some paperwork for you but it appears as though you are in no condition to receive it." He turns to his companions and speaks in a lower voice. "I don't like our chances of getting him out of that contraption without causing further harm."
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Garinol successfully reaches Miregold, suspended atop his own fantastic construction, and infuses him with life to supplement the venture-captain's own waning light. Miregold is pierced in a dozen places, with caustic fluids being infused directly into his veins. Garinol doesn't have a solid handle on Miregold's situation, but it is clear to him that the Pathfinder will die in short moments without further intervention.
Although neither Rhydderch nor VBH can see any particular source, Rhydderch is sure that there is some source of evil among the machinery on the east wall.
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